CMS: A journey into the unknown

Getting our feeds set up on our web page.

I posted a bunch of pictures from flickr that Rob and Tahnee had taken and pinned them on the map.  I figured out that if you can’t right click and select copy image location, if you go to the small size and highlight, copy and paste it, that works too.  After I pinned the images, I added a comment to the picture on flickr that says “on map” so people don’t have to try to figure out if the picture’s been posted already.

 

http://aprilcorbin.jourcms.brauerranch.com

I decided to tackle Drupal with the intention of furthering the news website we’re trying to build.

First, I enabled the ‘news aggregator’ module and added three RSS feeds, one from http://www.unlvrebelyell.com/, one from http://www.rebcast.com/ and the other from my WordPress-site http://www.aprilcore.com.  For the Yell’s RSS feed, I then enabled a block and placed it in my right sidebar.  I tried to do the same for RebCast but the feed hasn’t picked up anything.  For the aprilcore feed, I customized all posts to be categorized as “Other RSS.”  Then, I enabled a block for the “Other RSS” category.  I figured that way, we could lump less important RSS feeds together… while still giving awesome RSS feeds (like the beloved school newspaper) their own special block.

Second, I created an Utterz account.  I know we want to use this website for ongoing coverage of events, like the JMS coverage of the Democratic national debate.  Utterz made it really simple.  It told me which modules to enable (API blog) and then had me type in the link to my Drupal site and my log-in.  That set up an automatic filter from my Utterz account to the Drupal blog.  I tested it out with a (really stupid) voice post from my phone.  It worked.

Third, I created a Twitter account.  They have a “share your feed’ section which created flash for you.  I followed those two-click instructions, then copied and pasted the code into a custom block on my Druapl site.  Then, it magically appeared on the right sidebar of the mainsite.

I talked to Rob a little tonight about how information should be sorted on the website.  We didn’t really come to a great conclusion.  I think maybe if we defined the site a little bit more, that would be steer me in the right direction of how to set up the use of categories and tags.  My first impulse was to make sections for the type of content (written/audio/photo/video) but then I realized that might get complicated for posts containing more than one type of media.  Rob suggested doing it by topic instead, which makes sense, except that I’m not sure what the topics would be.

Click on the Maryland Pkwy map.  Click the edit button next to the title.  Grab a pin and place it on the map.  Click Rich Text to write in the box.  Go to flickr and click on the picture you want.  Go to All Sizes.  Select small.  Right click and copy image location.  Back at the map, in pin box, click on the picture image and paste the location.

Don’t forget to change the icons by clicking on the icon button on the right.

Post Away!

Thank you so much for posting everything guys!  I think you guys have some great ideas flying around and I’m looking forward to figuring things out tomorrow.

Oh, for the record, I would prefer to be on the JMS team, but I do not have a problem being a floater between both!

 

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Here is an example of an interactive map on my drupal:

http://heperimita.jourcms.brauerranch.com/?q=node/9

If you click on different parts of the map it links you to different websites. I threw in there unlv.edu, unlvrebelyell.com, google.com, and lasvegassun.com, see if you can find them all.  I’m not sure why the map didn’t work when i tried to post it on here. I suspect its because this wordpress blog treats images differently than drupal does. Anyway they’re really easy to make in dreamweaver and would look great on our Maryland Parkway Project site. This is just a quick mockup, the image of maryland parkway will probably be different and the links will of course link to different types of content within the maryland parkway site.

Since we are talking about adding a navigation map

Here are some possible angles I got from google maps

Hey everybody, I will be at the Leid Library Saturday at around 1pm if anybody wants to meet up and work on some website stuff. I’d like to get a prototype of the maryland project up and running and maybe decide on a name and work on some artwork, or the google map. Post here if you might come down.

EDIT: Also me and Hepi and April will be getting some lunch somewhere at noon if you want to show up a bit early. IHOP?

Sweeeet it embeds in HD folks.

edit: it appears that the video has somehow become sd(not hd). that is just maddening. vimeo must have revoked its embeded HD api. and i thought i was getting somewhere.

edit: it works again, joy.